Sulabh International is a social service organization, in New Dehli, working in the sanitation sector. The NGO’s founder Bindeshwar Pathak was honored by the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization at the United Nations headquarters in New York for developing low cost toilet technology to produce energy out of human excreta.Pathak has designed an indigenous two-pit toilet technology which is not only cost effective but also produces biogas. The toilet is designed in such a way that it organically breaks down human excreta into trapped biogas that can be burned to provide cooking fuel and electricity. This design has been approved by the Ministry of Non-conventional energy.
Other prominent innovations include:
- Sulabh public toilet and bath facilities based on that system at 7500 locations, together serving more than 10 million people daily. These pay-per-use public facilities provide an economically sustainable, ecological, and culturally acceptable solution to hygiene problems in crowded slum communities and public places.
- Optimized water conservation in the Sulabh Shauchalaya systems, requiring only 1.5 litres of water per use to flush, in contrast to conventional toilets that require a minimum of 10 litres. This has significant additional benefits for health and quality of life in water-poor regions.
- Environmentally balanced wastewater treatment based on a duckweed and fish raising (pisciculture) ecosystem that provides economic opportunities for rural poor communities.
- Several technologies that convert waste from Sulabh Shauchalaya toilets into biogas for heating, cooking, and generating electricity.
One can also visit the Toilet-Museum which is said to be only one of its kinds in the world in the site.
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